Lamentations 2: 14
Your prophets have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They did not save you from exile by pointing out your sins. Instead, they painted false pictures, filling you with false hope.
Who are you listening to? How is your pastor preaching? What are the televised and online preachers saying? Are they promoting God's majesty, holiness and purity? Or are they giving you encouragement in your worldly attitudes, your common-sense plans?
God is not willing to condone any variance from His own character. Even the slightest closeness to perfect is not perfect. Every member of Mankind has inherited the DNA defects of our father, Adam. The church has traditionally called this, "original sin," and more recently, "the sin-nature." This handicap leads us into making foolish choices, that lead us away from God and His ways.
There is nothing that we can do in our humanity that God can accept, as even our best intentions and our most helpful philanthropies are no better than filthy, uncleanable menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:6). So we can't help ourselves.
That's why God sent His only Son, the Lord God of the Old Testament, who we now know as Jesus of Nazareth. He alone was born fully human from His mother, but without that defect, because His Father was not Adam, but God Himself. Isaiah tells us that the child would be born, but the Son would be given, the One Who has been the Son from eternity past (Isaiah 9:6-7).
It is Jesus Who is God's Christ, His Anointed, for us. He it is Who has been anointed to be our Perfect Lamb, sacrificed to take our death, Whose Blood does not only cover, but fully washes away our sinfulness--all our sins as well as that DNA defect. He said that He will make all things new (Revelation 21:5), because He is the Creator who made all things in the first place, so He can always decide to rearrange all the molecules into new bodies, a new Earth and a new Heaven; just like my son could dismantle and re-build his Lego castles and cities.
So if any of your teachers is telling you that you can do anything, without relying fully on God, dump them. Find honest, godly teachers who will inform you of what you really do need, to be remade. Who will tell you straight out that you are a sinner, born under wrath, and Jesus took your wrath on the Cross, in your place. Then God will work His miracle in you, cleansing you of all that is contrary to His holiness, and placing His own Holy Spirit in you to live in you, making your dead spirit alive. And He will teach you how to hear His still, small voice that you will hear as a sure knowing deep in your spirit. He also speaks to us in His Word the Bible, in circumstances, and through His other sons and daughters.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
